Rio Apurimac - Upper Section

Adam leading the charge down one of the first rapids of the section

20/07/12 - 22/07/12

The Upper Apurimac is an intense 7km section of grade 5 that is paddled from the villages of Tincoc to Nayhua. The trip took us two days and to say that our descent was an epic would be an understatement!

Day 1

From Tincoc, the river is initially flat before rounding a bend where the gradient rises sharply. Rapids are formed around and over huge boulders, with long and complex lines and the constant hazard of siphons- we inspected every rapid and set safety, our efforts were rewarded with some amazing lines and aesthetic moves in this kayaking game of chess.

A clean boof move

Tom lining up

Adam

 At the end of day 1 we were buzzing. We had paddled a series of great grade 5 rapids with no portages. The final rapid of the day stands out as particularly rewarding. A long 300-400 metres grade 5 with a complex set of moves around huge boulders. We have some good video of this rapid which we will put together back in the UK.

Camp

Day 2

Day 2 was to turn out to be a more nerve-racking affair to say the least. We began by making a grueling portage around a messy bouldery rapid, which is possibly paddleable, but non of us fancied it. Unfortunately on the next rapid Derf swam, and despite being quickly rescued her boat sailed off to be pinned 500 metres downstream. The extraction of the boat involved Derf live baiting to a rock in the centre of the river and then hauling the boat out from the pin. Some photos below show the difficulty of the boat extraction.

Derf being live baited to her boat

Many ropes!

We continued down the river with several more good rapids, but with two more portages that were physically very demanding. By this point the team was very tired, even though the end was almost in sight only 2 km away. Sadly Derf had another swim, and whilst she made it to the bank safely, we chased her boat for about a km down some read and run grade 4 / 4+ but we couldn´t retrieve the boat before it became pinned in the middle of the river above a grade 5 drop. At this point the river was 60-70 metres wide. With the boat in the middle of the river, there was no easy way for us to get to it. We decided to set up camp and have another look in the morning. 

The tricky pin

Day 3

Due to the width of the river at this point it was not possible to live bait a person to the boat. The only option was a tricky break-out and ferry glide above the main drop to get to a small rock where one could potentially clamber onto the rock and try to attach a line to the pinned boat. We elected to leave the boat and Derf made her way back to Cusco, in the hope that we might come back to retrieve it some time soon!